Differing to my first post, measure the cost of the other energy sources which are used to build and maintain the reactor and the infrastructure required to harness and distribute its output.

Short term versus long term solutions.

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"Originally posted by visualx: hey everyone, look at me. i call people poor though i make absolutely nothing; brag about my job as an intern or some ****; hate on people for not being fat like me; and absolutely never have any idea what i'm talking about, though i always have a ****ing righteous indignation with everything i say! aren't i ****ing amazing?! do you all like me yet?! oh, you know that hate is just a guise! good thing i have a ****ing amazing life! now let me go **** my fat girlfriend and cry myself to sleep"

The over arching theme being that we don't have an energy solution that will do fossil fuels job without relying on fossil fuels.

We have an energy solution that outperforms fossil fuels, we're just not interested in investing in the infrastructure.

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"Originally posted by visualx: hey everyone, look at me. i call people poor though i make absolutely nothing; brag about my job as an intern or some ****; hate on people for not being fat like me; and absolutely never have any idea what i'm talking about, though i always have a ****ing righteous indignation with everything i say! aren't i ****ing amazing?! do you all like me yet?! oh, you know that hate is just a guise! good thing i have a ****ing amazing life! now let me go **** my fat girlfriend and cry myself to sleep"

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"Originally posted by visualx: hey everyone, look at me. i call people poor though i make absolutely nothing; brag about my job as an intern or some ****; hate on people for not being fat like me; and absolutely never have any idea what i'm talking about, though i always have a ****ing righteous indignation with everything i say! aren't i ****ing amazing?! do you all like me yet?! oh, you know that hate is just a guise! good thing i have a ****ing amazing life! now let me go **** my fat girlfriend and cry myself to sleep"

To make Nuclear power work, a tremendous amount of non nuclear resources are needed to build maintain and decommission it. Nuclear power is non renewable and cannot sustain itself. To put it simply, it requires a flow of raw material to function. To acquire this material requires, again, non nuclear resources. Nuclear power carries with it tremendous environmental consequences. This isn't to mention the environmental impact from merely harvesting the raw material.

So you build yourself a reactor with the infrastructure to bring power to a grid, what else is it good for? We do not have the means of safely placing nuclear reactors in every day vehicles and machinery. If we could, we might solve a portion of the costs associated. The technology is unstable. Due to the dangers and associated costs, it is hard to justify whether or not nuclear power is even a worthwhile investment, despite the energy output.

I didn't say it's the end all, but by shifting national power generation to nuclear we free up a whole lot of heating and energy generating fuel capacity. Less exposure to a volatile market, more technical jobs, more secure power generation and a chance to update antiquated transmission infrastructure, there are a lot of positives.

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"Originally posted by visualx: hey everyone, look at me. i call people poor though i make absolutely nothing; brag about my job as an intern or some ****; hate on people for not being fat like me; and absolutely never have any idea what i'm talking about, though i always have a ****ing righteous indignation with everything i say! aren't i ****ing amazing?! do you all like me yet?! oh, you know that hate is just a guise! good thing i have a ****ing amazing life! now let me go **** my fat girlfriend and cry myself to sleep"

I didn't say it's the end all, but by shifting national power generation to nuclear we free up a whole lot of heating and energy generating fuel capacity. Less exposure to a volatile market, more technical jobs, more secure power generation and a chance to update antiquated transmission infrastructure, there are a lot of positives.

I don't mean to imply you implied that nuclear is the end all be all. I am simply doing my best to point out that nuclear energy is not a practical solution to our energy problems.

The output of nuclear technology does not justify the cost and risk. Especially as a national energy source. Again, we are limited on which applications can harness the power. A lot of what you said is very wishy washy and truthfully amounts to little of real substance to respond to. Unless you can address the issues surrounding nuclear power that I have raised, there is little point in taking this any further. One thing is certain. The freed resources will be allocated and eaten up by what is required for nuclear power.

Let's ignore the brittle technology which pending natural disaster can cause catastrophic damage, the incredibly lethal waste produced by reactors and the already mentioned incredibly expensive costs for one simple fact.

We will deplete our supplies of fissionable resources like uranium. So the question is, what point is there in investing time and resources into a vastly expensive technology which will ultimately amount to nothing more than kicking the can down the road. By that I mean of its non renewability in a practical sense of time.

He hit the nail on the head. It's low enrichment, much more abundant, featured around the world as viable, recyclable and the next step in reactors. Do some research on it, you'll find it interesting. I'm not talking about vehicles, but with the expansion of EV's, the current power grid and generation system can't support it. It can't keep up with the summer demand if you remember the rolling blackouts in California or the blackout in the Northeast, let alone hundreds of thousands of rapid charging stations.

Brittle technology? You do realize all of the plants in use here were built before most of the posters here were born, right? It's been 30 years since a reactor was approved in the USA and it's supposed to compete with modern technology? Look at the Fukushima disaster, the 9.0 earthquake didn't phase the 41 year old plant. It took poor planning and a once in a century 49ft tsunami to cause the disaster.

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"Originally posted by visualx: hey everyone, look at me. i call people poor though i make absolutely nothing; brag about my job as an intern or some ****; hate on people for not being fat like me; and absolutely never have any idea what i'm talking about, though i always have a ****ing righteous indignation with everything i say! aren't i ****ing amazing?! do you all like me yet?! oh, you know that hate is just a guise! good thing i have a ****ing amazing life! now let me go **** my fat girlfriend and cry myself to sleep"

What about fission? We know it's possible. We just have to figure out how to get it going. There have been a lot of very dramatic advancements in getting a higher energy output yield than is put in it (most recently, a very small experiment that was first virtualized with a computer model has put out more energy than it took to start it. A very significant advancement, but we have to try and scale it larger to make it something viable for us), but discovering the key to such a thing could help the world tremendously.

__________________“But men, they say a lot of foolish things. In the end, the only words I can find to believe in are mine." - Joe

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"Originally posted by visualx: hey everyone, look at me. i call people poor though i make absolutely nothing; brag about my job as an intern or some ****; hate on people for not being fat like me; and absolutely never have any idea what i'm talking about, though i always have a ****ing righteous indignation with everything i say! aren't i ****ing amazing?! do you all like me yet?! oh, you know that hate is just a guise! good thing i have a ****ing amazing life! now let me go **** my fat girlfriend and cry myself to sleep"

The latest advancement in fusion produced a second or millisecond of energy that came nowhere close to the amount of energy that was required to do it. If I remember correctly there has been billions dumped in grant money at physicist to make fusion a reality and there hasn't been a significant return. Not saying there won't be, but a computer model is a far cry from a viable solution and the current success of a real world test was rather pathetic.

The latest advancement in fusion produced a second or millisecond of energy that came nowhere close to the amount of energy that was required to do it. If I remember correctly there has been billions dumped in grant money at physicist to make fusion a reality and there hasn't been a significant return. Not saying there won't be, but a computer model is a far cry from a viable solution and the current success of a real world test was rather pathetic.

Anyway I'll respond to the rest on Monday.

Quote:

Originally Posted by F1VENOM

You mean fusion? Google ITER if you're into that kind of thing.

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"Originally posted by visualx: hey everyone, look at me. i call people poor though i make absolutely nothing; brag about my job as an intern or some ****; hate on people for not being fat like me; and absolutely never have any idea what i'm talking about, though i always have a ****ing righteous indignation with everything i say! aren't i ****ing amazing?! do you all like me yet?! oh, you know that hate is just a guise! good thing i have a ****ing amazing life! now let me go **** my fat girlfriend and cry myself to sleep"

I was thinking "isn't it fusion?" and then rethought maybe I was wrong and he was talking about something else. Then I went and listened to the "Astronomy Cast" podcast with Frasier and Pamela on fisuon and fission, then one on Mars, and forgot about the thread entirely.

and yes, Thorium research is surprisingly non existent. I read up on this in a book "Terrestrial Energy" by William Tucker. I am not sure why research into Thorium reactors was off discussion for 40 or so years. It's more abundant than uranium and plutonium, and harder to weaponize. What is to dislike? I believe the United States has a lot of it too, and one of the Scandinavian countries (or all of them) has a lot too. I believe that we are working with China (of all people) on making a functional Thorium reactor.

To make an "on topic" post here - Thorium is a lot cleaner and less radioactive than anything currently used in a nuclear reactor. It also doesn't need anything additional to function inside a reactor - just Thorium standalone is suffice.

It's a great topic, and I'm curious to see what we have done in the past year to further Thorium research. I'll have to read up on it.

What you're seeking doesn't exist. They're all kicking the can down the road until jebus can save us.

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"Originally posted by visualx: hey everyone, look at me. i call people poor though i make absolutely nothing; brag about my job as an intern or some ****; hate on people for not being fat like me; and absolutely never have any idea what i'm talking about, though i always have a ****ing righteous indignation with everything i say! aren't i ****ing amazing?! do you all like me yet?! oh, you know that hate is just a guise! good thing i have a ****ing amazing life! now let me go **** my fat girlfriend and cry myself to sleep"